


pulse to pulse

by starstrung



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, Mind Meld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 22:29:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5802547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstrung/pseuds/starstrung
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being on Shepard's crew has a steep learning curve, but Liara has always been a quick learner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pulse to pulse

**Author's Note:**

> My love letter to Liara.

Liara carries a memory of Benezia that is so vivid, it steals away a bit the horror and betrayal of all the events to come.

Asari memory is long and winding, and oftentimes uneven, and so Liara knows that she cannot trust herself to have remembered this early day with any accuracy. Still, even if it never happened, she doesn’t let herself forget it.

The Thessian sunset colors the memory a rosy pink, stretching shadows across Benezia’s office. Benezia talks in muted tones to another asari on the commlink, and Liara isn’t listening, drawn to the titles of the books that line Benezia’s bookshelf. She knows she is very young in this memory because she can only see the bottom two shelves.

She runs her fingers across the spines of them and thinks of how much more impressive and secretive they look than her own books.

Her attention turns to Benezia again, drawn by the sudden change in the tone of her voice. It has gone from calm and diplomatic to sharp, angry. Liara wonders, with the logic of a child, if it is somehow her fault, even though Benezia faces away from her, and doesn’t know that she’s in the room.

“I’ve asked you not to use that word in our conversations, Counsellor,” Benezia says.

The Counsellor laughs insincerely. “Oh, it must have slipped my mind. You _have_ one of them, don’t you?”

If Benezia’s voice burned with anger before, now it is cold with it, spouting jagged spikes of ice. “You will not speak of my daughter that way.”

“You need my vote if you want this motion to even have a chance of passing, so have a care before you order me around. Your daughter is a pureblood, Benezia. You’re lucky she isn’t _diseased_.”

Pureblood. The word sounds raw and half-formed, floats vile and polluted on the tip of Liara’s tongue. She must make a sound, because Benezia’s turns to look at her, the setting sun catching the profile of her face and outlining the shock that sits there.

“This conversation is over. I will see you at the next legislative session.” Benezia ends the commlink. She crosses the room to kneel in front of Liara, her dress pooling on the floor, and she gathers Liara into her arms.

“They are wrong and blind and afraid. Never listen to them, promise you’ll never listen to them,” Benezia says. Then, Liara had nodded reflexively, tears prickling in her eyes at the raw emotion in her mother’s voice. Now, Liara wonders if Benezia had been speaking about herself.

Her mother, Liara learns later, had been facing the fallout in her political career from having the audacity to give birth to a pureblooded asari and not even pretend to apologize for it afterwards. It is one of the things Liara still admires about Benezia, even if it threw her mother into a series of events that ended with her trusting, of all people, Saren.

She regrets that she learned of her mother’s defiance too late, long after they had broken contact with each other.

-

Her biotic powers manifest when she is very young, younger than most asari children. She feels it before she knows what it is, a building pressure corroding into the inside of her skull. The element zero flecked in her bones amplifies the electric currents already running along her nerves, her body charging up like a battery.

She doesn’t remember what finally sets it off. She must have touched something sharp, or hot, or cold. Something to make sudden sensation shoot up her arm, to her spine, activating millions of eezo nodules along the way. An uncontrolled burst of energy with nowhere to go, but out. The resulting explosion throws Liara onto her back and the rest of the room into complete disarray.

The first thing Liara feels, before the pain or the shock, is pure relief. Her vision is clear again. Her headache, once crippling, is lifted.

Benezia is in the other room when it happens, and she comes running when she hears the crashing noise. She takes one look at the mess, the blue energy still rippling in the air, and she immediately takes Liara to be fitted for an implant and a bio-amp. The next day, she is enrolled in biotics lessons.

Liara, skin still tender from the implant surgery, flushes with happiness when Benezia tells her that she’s proud of her. She guides Liara’s fingers to the base of her own skull, where Liara can feel her mother’s implant under her skin.

“I was the same age as you,” Benezia tells Liara, her lips turned in a rare smile, radiant and perfect.

-

The anthropology graduate program accepts her and she leaves for University of Serrice. It is the last time she talks to Benezia.

“Are you sure about this?” Benezia asks. Even talking to her face to face, Benezia’s voice is distracted, her mind somewhere else. She hasn’t approved of Liara studying archaeology, or perhaps she hasn’t given time to consider it. Liara has stopped expecting that she will.

“I’m sure, Mother,” Liara says, and on a whim, she drops the bags she’s holding and pulls Benezia into a hug. They are of the same height now, and it feels wrong that Liara has to bend down slightly to put her chin on her mother’s shoulder. She feels like she should still be a small one, clutching to the skirts of her mother’s dress.

She feels Benezia tense, and then return the hug. “Goodbye, my little wing,” she says, softly, the distraction gone from her voice, like the lifting of a fog.

It is stupid of Liara to suddenly want to put her life on hold and extend this moment. To tell the University that she’ll wait another academic year, just so she can have this chance to truly talk with her mother. Ask her to tell her stories again, of the goddess Athame and her guides.

The moment passes, her mother pulls away. Liara picks up her bags again and gets onto the transport.

-

She is the first person in her year to be chosen to go on an expedition.

Professor Hennell’s team, of which Liara has been asked to be a part of, sets up camp on Dretirop, a small rocky planet on the outskirts of Council-controlled space. She tries to imagine the planet fifty thousand years ago, when it was a home for Protheans (or so they hope). Now, the system’s star has expanded past its previous borders, its erratic solar flares constantly reducing their communications to indecipherable static, and causing spikes in radiation so high that to go outside, they have to wear shields.

It is her first dig site, and she’s in love.

Sweat drips down her brow as she uses her biotics to push into the crumbling rock, expanding the tunnel that she has been working on all week. She’s quickly realized that she was asked to be on this expedition because being on a dig site, astonishingly, involves digging, and her biotics are well-trained enough to do the job.

She’s here to provide free labor, essentially.

That doesn’t stop her from being interminably excited about almost _everything_ during this trip so far. She is the first to wake up each morning to get a head start on her work, and the last to fall asleep because she’s using all the feedback from the other archaeologists to edit her thesis. The others are waiting for her to burn out, she can tell, but it hasn’t stopped her.

She inches forward with her biotics and a cloud of dust billows into her face, fizzing as it hits the breather mask that she’s wearing. She waits for the filters to do their work before continuing. She’s not, technically, supposed to be using the breathers down here, but the job goes so much quicker when she’s not choking on dust the whole time.

Without warning, the rest of the rock crumbles away. The sudden lack of resistance against her biotics throws off her balance and she pitches forward into the hole she has just made.

Unable to correct her fall, she lands on her side hard. All the breath gets knocked out of her, and she lies curled on the ground, unable to move from the pain. It fades, slowly, until she gathers enough courage to roll onto her back.

Since this doesn’t produce any particular convulsions of agony, she takes this as a sign that nothing is broken. That is, until she hears a sickening crunch.

Digging under her back, she pulls out a broken breather mask.

“Oh, Goddess,” Liara says, collapsing back into the dirt. She is going to get yelled at for this one.

But then, her eyes adjust to the dim light, and she forgets all about the breather mask.

Light filters in from the tunnel she has made, illuminating what is, without a doubt, a room of some sort, or what’s left of it. The walls gleam strangely, and she goes to one, wipes away the thick dust to reveal an iridescent metal. It’s made of tempered iridium-based alloys, like the kind she’s seen in ancient Prothean artifacts.

Without the breather, she is forced to breathe in the stale, dusty air, and a thrill goes through her when she thinks about how long this air has remained undisturbed. Whether she is breathing the air that, thousands of years ago, a Prothean breathed.

Her eyes take in the strange metal furniture, the layout of the room,  and she realizes that it must have been some kind of living space. Millennia ago, this may have been an outpost of some sort, before time and dust storms and various geologic events buried it beneath the rock.

She should let Professor Hennell know what she’s found. She should go back to the camp immediately. She should take notes, document, collect. She should be doing a thousand and one things.

Instead, Liara sits on the floor, breathes more of the dry air, now sweet to her lungs, and lets herself be the first person to exist inside these walls since the height of an ancient, long dead civilization.

-

The University pulls the funding for her expedition. Of course, they only tell her _after_ she’s nearly done packing.

“There’s nothing I can do,” Hennell tells her, blunt as always.

It has been years since Liara joined Hennell on that first expedition to a goddess-forsaken planet. But now, Liara has her eyes set on a different goddess-forsaken planet: Therum.

“I’m contracting my own staff, out of pocket,” Liara lies, fully intending on going alone. “The University doesn’t need to give me much. Just enough for transportation and basic supplies.”

“Out of pocket?” Hennell repeats, knowing full well that Liara’s salary as a postdoctorate researcher is not very high.

Liara nods, not betraying anything. She might have had money before, perhaps, saved up from when she still had access to her mother’s accounts. But she’s already spent all of it on three solo dig projects, none of which the University has any knowledge of.

She’s out of options for Therum.

Hennell looks at her over the datapad. “What are you trying to prove, Dr. T’soni?”

Liara grits her teeth. “You already know.”

“What I _know_ , is that you’re a bright researcher, the youngest Ph.d our program has produced in generations. I _know_ that I supported you when the others on your defense committee didn’t want to give you your degree. What I _also_ know, is that you won’t find what you’re looking for on Therum.”

“You don’t know that. The evidence suggests--”

“The _evidence_ that you’ve convoluted to fit your theory about a civilization-ending catastrophe?”

“Yes,” Liara bites out, looking Hennell in the eye. She is no longer that bright-eyed graduate student, intimidated by her supervisors’ intelligence. “That evidence.”

Hennell sighs, looking more tired than angry. “It is an interesting theory.”

“You don’t have to indulge me, Professor,” Liara says, sharply. She’s had enough of people looking down at her because she is centuries younger than all of her colleagues. She doesn’t need Hennell to patronize to her as well.

“Very well,” Hennell says, smoothly. She passes Liara back her datapad. “I can’t help you. The University pulled its funding for a reason, and when it comes down to it, I agree with them.” She stands and begins to pack up her things. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lecture to give.”

Liara watches her go. She’s not sure why she came since she was already familiar with Hennell’s views on the matter. Still, it makes her sad that she has lost her last ally in this place.

She feels much older than that graduate student who sat on the dusty floor of an ancient ruin, and felt the thrill of discovery for the first time.

-

She doesn’t give up on Therum.

In a bar on Omega, Liara toys with her drink and tries not to look as out of place as she feels. The place is packed, and everyone around her seems to be heavily armed. (Why is that batarian carrying a rocket launcher? Why would _anyone_ carry a rocket launcher on a space station?) She probably should have brought a pistol, but she’s more likely to shoot herself with one. Her biotics will have to be enough. They always have been.

And then the batarian carrying the rocket launcher turns around and makes eye contact with her. She stares, frozen, as he comes up to the bar and orders himself a drink.

“T’soni?” he asks.

She swallows. “You must be Metin.”

Metin nods, and takes another sip of his drink. Liara has the distinct feeling that she’s being sized up. She takes a deep breath.

“I need transport to Therum, and the right paperwork that will let me set up camp on one of the abandoned sites. I will be there for at least five months, so I’ll need supplies for that long, as well.”

“Straight to business, huh?” Metin says, finishing his drink. Liara has not seen many batarians up close, but this one distinctly unsettles her.

Liara doesn’t say anything. She’s already done her research. Metin has a reputation for getting the job done, and being reliable, even if his methods aren’t always favorable.

“Okay then,” Metin says, like he’s humoring her. “What do I get in return, T’soni?”

Liara tries not to wince. This is the part she’s _not_ happy about. “In return, I let you have 75% of all the Prothean artifacts I find.”

Metin doesn’t even bother hiding his surprise. “That doesn’t leave much for you. What are you looking for?”

“That’s not your concern,” Liara says, before realizing that she should probably not talk to Metin that way. That rocket launcher is _absurdly_ huge. Luckily, he doesn’t look angry, just thoughtful.

“Works for me,” he says, with a shrug. “I know a guy, works on a mining facility on Therum. Should be able to get us transport for you, me, and my guys.”

“Excuse me?” Liara says. “I don’t -”.

Metin smiles, his teeth an unpleasant sight to behold from this distance. “Yeah, we’re coming with you, T’soni. Need to make sure you don’t run off with all those valuable Prothean artifacts, don’t we?”

Liara turns from him, glaring down into her drink. She should have expected this.

“We have a deal?” Metin asks, looking smug.

“We have a deal,” Liara says, and grudgingly shakes his hand.

-

The last time she sees Metin, he is swinging his rocket launcher onto his shoulder and running after his men, who are fighting off the geth. The rock walls shake with the sound of gunfire.

Liara panics. She has a pistol, hardly used, and now she takes it out of its holster, checks its ammo, makes sure the safety is off. Her hands shake. She hears Metin’s men yelling, and then, later, the synthetic noises that can only be from the geth.

Heart beating in her throat, she inches around a corner, and peeks.

Metin’s men are dead, their bodies strewn across the floor. Geth mill around, checking around every rock outcropping for enemies. They are led by a Krogan.

It’s the Krogan who sees her.

He gives a shout, and as one, the geth turn towards her, immediately aware of her location. She turns and runs, trying to think. She found something the other day, an old Prothean safe room of some kind, with an old security system that she’s been trying to get back offline.

It’s a long shot, but it’s her only hope. Behind her, the sound of metallic limbs running becomes louder.

-

And then Shepard finds her.

Her legs are unsteady after being held suspended in the air for so long. For hours, she was helpless, listening to the sound of the geth trying to find a way to get at her. She stumbles under her weight and Shepard grips her shoulder tightly for a brief moment to steady her.

“Should we trust her?” Kaidan asks. She remembers her first impression of him - that he’s a man who worries. It’s only later that she learns that he only worries about the things other people choose to forget about.

Ashley stands behind him, and where Kaidan is relaxed, she is alert, her assault rifle ready. She looks at Liara once, before her attention moves to assess their surroundings, to listen to the tremors running up the walls. Liara remembers that her expression was steely, but also curious.

She turns to Shepard, recognizing even without knowing them, that she is their leader. “I’m not my mother,” she says.

Shepard considers her for a long moment, even as the rock walls begin to come apart at the seams and the distant crashes sound closer, less like thunder and more like the mountain is collapsing. “The council’s not going to like this,” Shepard says, and to Liara’s surprise, grins.

Behind her, Ashley rolls her eyes. “Then let’s get out of this death trap so you can give them the news, ma’am.”

-

She spends her first mission as part of Shepard's crew trying desperately not to get in the way.

Back on the Normandy, Liara takes off her helmet and lets out a tired sigh. Every time she moves inside her armor, stiffness knots in her muscles. And that ache is nothing compared to how depleted her biotics are right now. She feels like if she tried to use them to lift a coffee mug right now, she’d fall over.

Shepard comes up behind her and claps her roughly on the shoulder. It’s almost enough to buckle her weak knees, but she grits her teeth and manages to stay upright.

“You were good out there, Liara,” Shepard says. She has taken off her helmet as well. Hair is plastered with sweat to her forehead and she brushes it away with a careless swipe of her armored fingers. But other than that faint sheen of perspiration, she looks exhilarated rather than exhausted. “Really saved my ass with those barriers.”

Liara manages a shaky smile. “I thought I wouldn’t make it in time. You move very fast.”

Garrus makes a scoffing noise. He is checking his rifle, seeming a little unsatisfied with its heat dampeners. “Tell me about it. It’s hard to cover someone who’s halfway across the field by the time you finish reloading, Shepard. At least give us some warning.”

“It keeps you on your toes, right Vakarian?” Shepard says with a grin. “Could be being on the Citadel made you soft. Out here, things don’t wait around for you to shoot them.”

Garrus’s mandibles flare in indignation. Liara hides a smile. She’s been on the Normandy long enough to know that Garrus and Shepard can’t resist trading shots. As it stands now, it’s twenty-to-fourteen in Shepard’s favor. Joker has been keeping count.

After Shepard goes to check in with Pressly, Garrus pulls her aside.

“You okay?” he asks.

Turians make for odd nursemaids. He looms over her, rifle still tucked under one arm, and peers down into her face with concern.

“I’m fine, Garrus,” she says, hoping he’ll leave her alone so that she can go collapse onto her bunk.

He sounds amused. “Being on Shepard’s crew isn’t something you pick up in a day. I may or may not have puked on my first time in the Mako.”

She meets his eyes, surprised that he’s telling her this. “What’s the Mako?”

“I’m sure you’ll get acquainted soon. In the meantime, you look like you’re going to fall down. Come on, T’soni.”

Liara lets Garrus lead her away. Walking side by side, she notices even more the wary looks from the Alliance crew. None of the humans have ever given her any trouble. They serve Shepard, and they’re too disciplined for that. But she can still feel them watching her, asking themselves if she’s on her mother’s side in this battle.

They get to the mess hall, where two crew members immediately stop talking when they see them come in. To her relief, Garrus acts like he doesn’t notice. He breezes over to the fridge, rummages around through the various ration packs, and snatches something up.

“Sit,” he tells her, and slaps a juice pack down on the table.

She does so, and doesn’t fail to notice that their end of the mess hall has gotten curiously empty. He leans against the table next to her, cradling a juice pack of his own. It’s marked with different colors than hers to show that it’s dextro.

“How many times did you use your pistol before getting on this ship, T’soni?” he asks, slurping on his juice pack. “And don’t round up this time.”

“I usually don’t need to. My biotics can handle the occasional pirate,” Liara says, a little defensively. She may not consider herself Benezia’s daughter any longer, but she still knows the value of the education she was given as a child. She was sent to biotic training almost before she could read.

“I don’t doubt that,” Garrus says. “But being handy with a pistol doesn’t hurt.” He finishes his juice and crushes the empty pack in his hand. “Come join me in the Normandy’s shooting range sometime. I need to test out some new mods anyway.”

Liara smiles. “Does the Commander know that you’re using her Spectre privileges to get you experimental mods?” She has the pleasure of watching Garrus look taken aback.

After a while, he laughs. “Drink your juice, T’soni.”

-

It’s hard for her to sleep those first few nights on the Normandy. She’s been traveling across the galaxy for years now, dig site to dig site, and she still finds it easier to fall asleep planetside. On nights when the weather is fair enough, she would set up camp on the planet’s surface and fall asleep to wind on her face, knowing that the remains of an ancient civilization lay beneath her, waiting for her to uncover them.

Aboard the Normandy, things are unnaturally quiet, the empty pull of open space lying just a few feet of metal away from her. She wonders if it would be better closer to the engines, where she can at least have the rhythmic thrum of the drive core.

On nights like these, when she cannot find sleep and is too exhausted to work, she thinks about Shepard, replays over and over the way she launches into battle without hesitation, at home in the forefront of any melee. Liara would feel more embarrassed by the way her thoughts stutter to a stop when she’s around Shepard, if she didn’t see that the rest of the crew has similar reactions, although they’ve had more time to get used to her presence.

But despite all that, Shepard never dismisses her outright, listens to what she has to say, makes it a point to include her and make time for her.

One night, she gives up on sleep and goes back to her terminal with a cup of coffee that she pilfers from the mess hall. It’s an amazing human invention, coffee. In her opinion, humans should be let into the Council based on its merit alone.

She’s barely taken a sip when there’s a knock at the door and Shepard comes in. She is holding her own steaming mug of coffee.

“Usually I’m the only one still awake at this hour. Imagine my surprise when I saw someone made a fresh pot. You can’t sleep either?”

Liara shakes her head. She offers Shepard the stool that sits in the corner, and Shepard perches on it, balancing her mug on top of her knees. For a minute, they both drink their coffee in silence.

“I’m still getting used to sleeping in space again. But that’s something you shouldn’t have a problem with,” Liara says, careful not to word it as a question.

Shepard hums. Here, in Alliance fatigues and amidst all of Liara’s scattered notes, it is difficult to picture the same woman who she’s seen drive an omni-blade into the chests of her enemies. There are permanent dark shadows under her eyes that, somehow, Liara never sees when Shepard is in armor.

“I guess I’m just tired of waiting. And sleeping - it feels like waiting.” Shepard makes a face into her mug. “Don’t tell Dr. Chakwas I said that. About not sleeping. I don’t know if you’ve been on the receiving end of one of her lectures, but they can be pretty brutal.”

“I’m hardly in any position to tell her anything,” Liara says, gesturing to her own mug of coffee. It is not her first sleepless night.

“True,” Shepard says. “I’m not keeping you from any important research, am I? You’re revolutionizing the field of Prothean historical study after all.”

Liara ducks her head, aware that she’s being teased. “I’ve barely had time to touch my research with everything that we’ve been doing.”

With surprise, she sees something like guilt cross Shepard’s face. “I’m sorry about that.”

Liara stares at her blankly. “Sorry?”

“I realized that I’ve been pushing you too hard. You’re the only person on this crew who hasn’t been trained for combat. Even Tali got her first pistol when she was absurdly young. I hope you’re not feeling too overwhelmed.”

Liara puts her coffee mug down on her desk before she drops it. “Commander, if I may say something?”

Shepard nods. “Of course.”

“You don’t have to worry about pushing me too hard,” Liara tells her. “If you hadn’t been there on Therum, I would be dead. I think it’s time I learned how to hold my own.”

“Liara, your biotics are in a class of their own, and you know it. There’s something else,” Shepard says, with a certainty that shames Liara for hiding the truth, even if she had a right to it. Somehow, she feels like Shepard deserves her secrets. Maybe it is that Shepard has faith in her, not just in her abilities, but in her character.

She swallows, and looks away before continuing. “And, I - I know what the rest of the crew think of me. I know they don’t trust me. If you continue to take me on missions, I think it would help. Let them see I’m on their side in all of this.”

“No one’s been saying anything to you, have they?” Shepard says, looking angry on her behalf. She takes pride in her crew. Liara hasn’t been on the Normandy for long, but she knows that much.

Liara shakes her head quickly. “No, they haven’t!” They haven’t been saying anything to her at all, Liara thinks. But she isn’t going to complain about that.

“Just give it some time,” Shepard says, voice apologetic. “I’m sorry if your time so far on the Normandy has been unpleasant.”

Liara looks at Shepard, at the scars up her arms and the sharp eyes holding her gaze. “It hasn’t,” she promises.

-

They take a trip to a refueling station to grab supplies. It means traveling through a quiet stretch of Alliance-regulated space, and other than occasionally taking Garrus up on his offer, Liara keeps to herself.

She has gotten used to eating in her small office, much more comfortable in that isolated space than she is in the Normandy’s mess hall. Sometimes, if Dr. Chakwas is free, they’ll eat together. She is one of the few crewmembers aboard the Normandy who seems to have forgotten that Liara’s mother is a known associate of Saren.

But this time, before she can make her escape with her tray of food, a hand yanks her down to sit on the mess hall bench.

“You’re not getting away that easy, Liara,” Shepard says, her mouth full with food. Liara once heard Wrex say that Shepard ate enough for three pregnant Krogan, upon which Shepard looked genuinely flattered. “Come join us. The mess has to be better than that tiny office of yours.”

“It isn’t that small. And it’s a good place to work,” Liara says. At this time of day, the mess hall is brimming with activity, and loud with conversation. She can’t remember the last time she shared a meal with so many other people.

She eats, and she finds herself relaxing a little at the sound of the crew talking and joking with each other. It’s a completely different atmosphere from the quiet professionalism they have when they’re at their work stations.

Shepard must see a little of that on her face. “It must have gotten lonely on Therum all by yourself. Not much there except the occasional mining facility.”

“I was too focused on my research to really mind it. I got messages and supplies on a weekly basis from the nearest mining facility. Other than that, it was quiet,” Liara says. “When there weren’t firefights happening right on top of your dig site.”

Shepard grins. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

Liara’s eyes widen when she realizes what she’s said. “No, I didn’t mean it like that,” she stutters. “I meant, Goddess, you _saved_ me from them. I didn’t mean to imply - It wasn’t your fault!”

She stops when she realizes Shepard is laughing. She wishes the ground would swallow her up.

“I was only joking, Liara. I’ll admit, my way of doing things doesn’t mix well with fragile Prothean artifacts,” Shepard says, still smiling. “I _am_ sorry we had to collapse a building onto your dig site though.”

“Oh,” Liara says, hoping that Shepard doesn’t think she’s an imbecile. “That’s all right. Between being alive and recovering a few Prothean artifacts, I would choose being alive.”

“Then I’m glad to have been helpful,” Shepard says. She finishes eating and rises to put away her dirty tray. Before going back to her office, she turns around.

“By the way,” she yells, “I’m investigating a distress beacon on a nearby planet and I want you there. Be down in the loading bay by 0800. We’ll take the Mako.”

“Shoulda skipped breakfast, T’soni,” a voice behind her says, once Shepard is gone.

-

The Mako turns out to be a huge all-terrain vehicle, bigger than a shuttle and outfitted with heavy machinery. The outside is battered and worn, with marks that look suspiciously like burns marring the white paint.

“Everyone get in,” Shepard says, carrying enough guns for five people. These she piles into the backseat, along with grenades and extra ammunition.

At Shepard’s instruction, they climb into the Mako. Shepard directs Liara to the front seat.

“First time passengers get shotgun automatically,” she tells her.

“Why is that?” Liara asks.

Wrex chuckles from behind her. He’s loading up an enormous shotgun that still manages to look small in his hands. “That’s because the front windows are the only ones that roll down. Just in case you need to puke.”

Liara’s hands turn instantly clammy, but Shepard only laughs. “Don’t worry. You skipped breakfast right?”

“No, I didn’t. You were there! You saw me eat!” She is aware that a note of panic is rising high in her voice.

Uncaring of Liara’s sudden gripping terror, the Normandy’s loading dock doors begin to open in front of them. The planet they are flying over is a rocky and barren. From this far away, the rock formations don’t even look like they’re real. Sparse clouds whip past them.

“Relax, Liara, I’m just teasing you,” Shepard says, over the roar of wind.

Shepard’s fingers fly over the dashboard interface, putting in the start-up sequence. The Mako comes to life, showing status updates on all the weapons. There are a lot of them.

“The only person who’s puked in the Mako is Garrus, and that’s because he ate some bad dextro pudding. You can handle it,” Shepard says. “Just remember two things. Number one, it’s okay to close your eyes. And number two— ”.

Liara is so focused on listening to Shepard that she doesn’t notice at first that the Mako is accelerating towards the open doors and out into open space until it’s too late.

The bottom of her stomach drops out as they go into freefall, and she clings tightly to the harness that is keeping her secured to her seat. She is too shocked to even close her eyes, so she is stuck watching as the planet’s surface below them gets closer and closer with alarming speed.

“Number two!” Shepard says, loudly but calmly, as if they are not currently plummeting in an uncontrolled descent towards a deep canyon. “No landing is perfect!”

Liara has her teeth clenched tight so she cannot reply even if she wanted to, but behind her she hears Wrex laugh. She watches as they narrowly miss a jagged mountain top, and tries not to imagine how easily it could have cleaved through them.

At the last minute, only a few hundred feet from the ground, Shepard wrenches at a lever and activates the Mako’s thrusters, making the entire vehicle thrum with energy. Their descent begins to slow, and Shepard maneuvers them so that they hover over a flat stretch of ground. When they finally land, the impact is still hard enough for Liara to jolt forward in her seat. She loses her grip on her pistol and it clatters to the floor.

“Show-off,” Wrex says to Shepard. He gets out of the Mako and begins to survey their surroundings.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Shepard says, grinning. She unclips her harness and twists towards the backseat to grab her weapons.

“I think I prefer shuttles. I think I definitely prefer shuttles,” Liara says. Her heart is still pounding, and she’s not sure if her legs will support her if stands. She tries to unbuckle her harness, but the thing is too complicated for her shaken mind to handle. Her fingers struggle uselessly at it.

Shepard sees her predicament. She swings her rifle onto her back to free up her hands and kneels on Liara’s seat, one knee poking into Liara’s thigh. The tips of her hair brush Liara’s forehead as she undoes Liara’s harness one buckle at a time. Liara tries not to think about how close they are.

“Shuttles aren’t as fast. The Mako can drop in quickly enough so that your enemies don’t have time to get the anti-aircraft guns ready,” Shepard explains. “I have to say, you’re doing a lot better than most people. It took Tali a full ten minutes to stop swearing enough to manage to open the door. And I think Kaidan might have cried a little his first time. Of course, that was also _my_ first time driving. I’ve gotten a little bit better.”

“You certainly enjoyed it,” Liara says. If she didn’t know with certainty that Shepard was a Council-certified Spectre, she would have begun to doubt her judgment. But then again, Saren had _also_ been a Council-certified Spectre.

“It was a good landing,” Shepard says. “We’re barely ten minutes away from the distress beacon.”

“If that was a good landing, I don’t know if I could survive a bad one.”

“Stick around long enough, Liara, and you’ll find out.”

Shepard unclasps the last buckle of her harness. She pats Liara roughly on the shoulder and follows Wrex out of the Mako. Just like the rest of her, Shepard’s touches are reckless and bold. She’s always sure of herself and doesn’t hold on rules and regulations like other military types.

Liara no longer stiffens up when Shepard touches her, but it’s still something she doesn’t think she’ll ever be completely used to.

She gives herself another thirty seconds of gathering her scattered thoughts and wrestling her breathing pattern into something that sounds less like hyperventilating, and then she goes out to meet Shepard and Wrex.

-

The distress beacon has been overrun by geth. _Of course_ the distress beacon has been overrun by geth.

Liara’s back hits the wall and she slides down to sit heavily on the ground, hands fumbling to reload her pistol. She forces herself to take a deep breath.

“A dozen geth. The one on our ten has a rocket launcher. Shepard, I don’t like our position.” Wrex’s voice is grim.

Twelve geth. And only three of them. “Are we going to make it?” she asks. Her throat feels choked, as if with dust, even though that should be impossible through the filters on her armor.

Shepard reaches out, quick as lightning, and grabs the back of Liara’s helmet. She knocks their helmet visors together and the impact brings the world back into focus. Liara’s field of vision narrows to what she can see of Shepard’s eyes. For a brief moment, she forgets about the enemies encroaching upon them.

There is no fear in Shepard’s eyes.

“We’re going to make it. Just do what I say and I promise you that.” Shepard says each word with such conviction that Liara believes her wholeheartedly. Shepard releases Liara’s helmet.

“Wrex, I need you to take care of the geth with the rocket launcher. Liara, use your biotics to keep as many geth as you can off their feet.”

“What about you, Shepard?” Wrex asks.

But Shepard is already launching herself into the horde of geth, heels lit up blue with biotic energy. The air vibrates with the force of her charge and the ripples of energy that Shepard leaves in her wake make the shields on Liara’s armor crackle audibly.

Liara tears her gaze away from Shepard and builds up her own biotic energy. She will never have the barely contained ferocity that Shepard manages to channel as easily as breathing, but she’s also smart enough to know that precision is just as important as power.

There are billions of eezo nodules dotting her muscles, and when Liara concentrates, she can feel every single one setting her nerves on fire. She thinks of each nodule as a piston, building up the pressure until just the friction of energy against her skin feels like it’s alive - a violent, pulsing thing.

She grits her teeth and _pushes_. And in front of her, geth tumble to their backs as a wave of biotic energy throws them off their feet. Only Shepard is left untouched.

Beside her, Wrex lets out a low impressed whistle. He has just finished dispatching the geth with the rocket launcher. Shepard takes up her shotgun, and the geth scattered at her feet meet their end.

After it’s done, Shepard steps over the smoking debris towards them.

“Could have saved some for us, Shepard,” Wrex says.

“I guess you’ll just need to be faster next time, Wrex,” Shepard says, unrepentant.

“Maybe next time I’ll let that geth launch a rocket on your sorry ass,” says Wrex, and Shepard throws back her head and laughs. Surrounded by strewn bits of geth, her laughter sounds more like a war cry than anything else. Liara’s heart feels lighter when she hears it.

“Liara, good work with those geth,” Shepard says, as they head back to the Mako. “I don’t know if I could have pulled that off without your help.”

“It was no trouble.” Liara nods at her, too surprised to say much else.

“Eh, you eezo babies rely too much on your fancy biotics. You don’t need anything more than a shotgun to get the job done,” Wrex says.

“Some things you can’t do with a shotgun, Wrex,” Shepard says, swinging an arm around Liara’s shoulders. “You know, you could give Kaidan a run for his money, Liara.”

“Now that would be something I’d bet credits on,” Wrex says.

“I didn’t realize pitting your crewmembers against each other was a common practice on Alliance vessels,” Liara says.

“It’s not,” Shepard says, laughing. “And it’s probably not a good way to keep the Normandy in one piece either.”

“From what I hear about Garrus’s makeshift shooting range in the cargo bay, the Normandy’s inside hull is taking a beating already,” Wrex says.

“For now, let’s just keep having the geth horde take the brunt of Liara’s biotics,” Shepard says.

“An entire horde sounds a little excessive,” says Liara.

The arm circling her shoulders squeezes tight for a moment. “I have faith in you.”

-

Noveria is a cold, desolate planet. There, they find Benezia.

She’s turned into a puppet of Saren’s, and when she dies in Liara’s arms, Liara stretches out her mind to properly send off the last lingering remnants of Benezia’s consciousness, and finds nothing.

On the way back the Normandy, no one speaks to her, but she can feel them giving each other worried looks. Everything feels disconnected and wrong, and there are old memories beading at the surface of her mind.

Her mother, wreathed in the light of the late Thessian sunset, standing at the window of her study. Her mother, hands on her shoulders, telling her how Athame had brought them the wisdom of science and mathematics, how Janiri had taught them how to grow food, how Lucen had taught them about the stars. Her mother, holding her gently and explaining why Liara’s classmates shunned her and called her “pureblood”.

“Make sure you get Dr. Chakwas to look at that,” Shepard says, when they get back to the Normandy. It is only then that Liara remembers she was injured in the fight by one of the commandos. She touches the side of her face, still sticky with the medigel she’d put on it in the middle of the battle, and winces at the sudden pain.

“I need to go tell the Council what happened, but I’ll come by to check on you, all right?”

Liara nods woodenly and watches Shepard go. She wonders how Shepard will tell them about what happened. If she will mention how Benezia called her “little wing” for the last time, her fingers clenched tight around hers to keep from succumbing to the indoctrination shackling her mind.

In the medbay, Dr. Chakwas fusses over her, spraying a harsh medicine that knits up the broken skin on her cheek. Even after the wound is sealed, the side of her face looks uneven and swollen.

“That’ll go away after a few days, don’t fret,” Dr. Chakwas says, even though Liara hadn’t commented on it.

Liara goes to her office, and works for a bit. She thinks she might not be able to focus, but suddenly, words come to her with a sudden clarity, her thoughts on the Prothean beacon, on the cipher, suddenly arranging themselves into coherent sentences without any effort.

She has to stop after a while, sick at herself. Her mother has died. She can’t be working on her research. She needs to be doing something else, some other, far more appropriate task. But her mind blanks, balks. Grief isn’t something that she thinks she can produce for Benezia.

When Shepard comes in, Liara is sitting on her bunk, staring ahead.

“Hey,” Shepard says, softly. Liara has never known Shepard to speak with this softness, this tenderness. It breaks something inside of her.

“Oh, hey, hey,” Shepard says immediately, taking in the change in Liara’s expression. To Liara’s surprise, she sits down next to Liara, and hugs her.

“I’m sorry,” Shepard says. Her hands rub warm circles into Liara’s back.

“I didn’t - Benezia was never - I didn’t know her,” Liara says, into Shepard’s shoulder. Shepard’s hands are ceaseless, determined, at Liara’s back. “I don’t know if I ever knew her.”

“She was still your mother,” Shepard says. There is genuine sorrow in her voice, even though Shepard was the one who pulled the trigger, who gave the order, who killed Benezia, in the end, while Liara lowered her pistol and watched.

Liara wonders if she should hate Shepard for that, but she only feels a profound relief that it’s all over.

Shepard pulls away. She brushes knuckles over the puckered wound across Liara’s face. Liara is able to feel the pressure, but not the sensation of Shepard’s skin against hers, and this, more than anything else that has happened today, fills her with a sense of loss.

“Dr. Chakwas says it’ll look better in a day or so,” Liara tells Shepard, who looks worried.

“Good. Dr. Chakwas knows what she’s doing. Sometimes I have to convince her to let me keep the scars,” Shepard says. Her knuckles are still touching Liara’s face, and she traces Liara’s jaw with them. Liara feels _that_.

She leans into the touch.

Shepard pulls her hand back, something like surprise flashing in her eyes. “I should let you rest,” she says, standing. “I’m giving you a break from missions. You can stay on the Normandy and work on your research.”

Liara feels dread twist her stomach at the thought of facing her notes, her drafts. “Shepard, I - I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. Please.”

Shepard stands in the doorway and regards her with something that looks like understanding. “Looks like we trained you too well, Liara. All right. But light missions only,” she says, and leaves.

-

Tali bends down to carefully stroke the petals of a flower with her gloved fingers. The planet is resplendent with vistas, a distant sea crashing on cliffs and wide, open meadows. Liara feels like she is breathing freely for the first time in days, but something twists inside of her at the delicate way that Tali handles the flower.

“We can pick some and bring them back with us,” Liara tells Tali.

Tali draws her hand back immediately, looking embarrassed. “No, that would be-” She looks furtively at Shepard, who is walking further along the path.

“Here,” Liara says, and begins to break off the stems carefully, gathering them into a bunch. They are wildflowers, not too fragrant, but their petals are heavy with color, and velvety. Liara wishes that Tali could feel them.

Tali takes the bunch from her. “They’re beautiful. We don’t - there wasn’t much space for flowers in the Fleet.”

“I haven’t been on a planet this beautiful in decades,” Liara tells her.

“I think the homeworld would look like this,” Tali says, holding up her fingers as if to feel the wind that’s blowing off the cliffs. “Green and sunny, everything growing wild.”

Liara tries to imagine it without the geth there, an abandoned world populated by ruins that used to be homes for the quarians. Like the digsites she did her research on used to be homes for the Protheans. “You could rebuild the ruins,” Liara says. “Live where your ancestors lived.”

“No,” Tali says, shaking her head. “I would want to start something new.”

They rejoin Shepard. She has her helmet off as well, and Liara marvels at the way the sunlight catches her hair and eyes.

“The old Alliance probe shouldn’t be that far,” Shepard says, fiddling with the tracking on her omni-tool.

“We just need to disable it?” Tali asks.

Shepard nods. “It has a nuclear payload on it, so we need to be careful. I’ll need you for this one, Tali.”

Tali sounds pleased. “Of course.” Liara sees that Tali has tucked the flowers into the belt at her side. She’s about to comment about it when her eyes catch something metallic glinting in the distance.

Liara yells, pushes Shepard and Tali behind her, and projects a barrier just as the geth open fire.

It feels like she’s been kicked in the stomach, the brunt of the geth attack draining her biotics faster than she can replenish them. Her boots dig back into the grass as she braces herself.

“Shit, we’re out in the open,” Shepard says. She stays behind Liara’s barrier, shooting at the geth whenever she can. But the angle is wrong, and Liara doesn’t think any of Shepard’s shots hit. She wishes Garrus was here with his sniper rifle right now.

“Tali, do you think you can send in some of your combat drones?” Shepard asks, replacing a thermal clip.

“On it,” Tali says.

“Liara, how much longer can you hold out?” Shepard asks.

Liara doesn’t answer right away. She’s never tested her limits like this, and the honest answer is that she doesn’t know. She’s heard the stories of people who overuse their biotics - amps exploding, melted implants, severe nerve damage, permanent paralysis. Every asari with an ounce of biotic potential was told the consequences.

“I’m fine,” she says, even as her arms begin to go numb. She knows it isn’t the answer to the question Shepard asks, but Shepard doesn’t comment on it.

“Do you think you can move to the trees on our right?” Shepard asks instead. “We need to get some cover.” She lays a hand on Liara’s shoulder, as if to steady her, and immediately recoils when she feels the energy rolling off of her. “Jesus, Liara.”

“I can move us, but it will be slow,” Liara says, careful to keep her voice neutral.

They make arduous progress. Tali’s combat drones are providing a distraction against the geth, diverting some of the fire, but Liara’s barriers are still taking the brunt of it. She can feel the amp at the back of her neck heating up.

“I should just charge over there, take them out at close range,” Shepard says, firing into the geth again. She’s taken out a couple of them, but there’s still too many.

“No,” Liara says through gritted teeth. If Shepard did that, she’d be on her own, and Liara can’t risk that. “I can do this.”

“Liara’s right, Shepard. There’s too many of them,” Tali says. She’s been sending in as many combat drones as she can, but the geth have begun to expect them, disabling the drones before they can get too close.

They are almost to the trees when Liara’s amp makes a popping noise, going red-hot as an ember. Liara loses control of the barrier, and the energy she is still channeling dissipates badly, shooting pain up her spine. Her head is pounding, and briefly, her vision goes completely dark.

“Liara!” Shepard yells, pulling at her arm. Together, they run the rest of the way towards the trees, Tali close behind. The geth are advancing relentlessly, shooting after them.

Just before they get to cover, Shepard is hit. She’s shielding Liara from the gunfire, so Liara knows because Shepard stumbles against her, a strangled yell pulled out of her throat. It’s only a second, and then they make it to the trees, using the thick trunks to shield them from the geth.

Liara collapses to the floor, uncertain if she has the energy to stand up again. “Tali, Shepard’s hurt,” she manages weakly.

Tali goes to Shepard immediately, but Shepard pushes her away.

“I’m fine,” Shepard says, already applying medigel. The shot is on her upper abdomen, on the left. It has pierced through her armor, and the black material is shiny with blood.

“Should we call the Normandy for help?” Tali asks.

Shepard shakes her head. “We don’t know the situation. They could have the nuclear payload. I won’t put the Normandy in danger.”

“Then what do we do?” Tali asks.

“We do what we always do. We hold our ground,” Shepard says. She reaches behind her and pulls out grenades.

“Are those Wrex’s?” Tali asks.

“Stole them when he wasn’t looking,” Shepard says with a grin, piling them into Tali’s arms. “Give them hell, Tali.”

Shepard inches her way to Liara. “How are you holding up?”

Liara considers it a victory that she can keep Shepard’s face in focus. “I’m sorry. I should have - the barrier wasn’t -”

“Liara, you held that barrier for longer than I thought possible,” Shepard says. She reaches out, and her hands cradle Liara’s face. Liara manages to lift one still-numb arm and grip Shepard’s wrist for “Just get some rest. Tali and I will handle it.”

It’s a slow fight. The geth keep advancing, which means they leave their cover, giving a chance for Shepard to shoot them down. Tali devises a way to have her drones carry grenades into the geth horde, wreaking havoc across the enemy’s lines.

After a while, Liara gets some of her strength back, and manages to help out with her pistol. Her amp is well and truly fried; it will just have to be replaced.

It seems like hours go by before it is finally done. Tali finds the nuclear payload, and disables it easily.

Sometime between Shepard calling Joker for pick-up and the Normandy’s arrival, Liara loses consciousness.

-

When she wakes up, her head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, a dull and aching pain that makes her realize that she must be on a _lot_ of pain medication.

Chakwas immediately goes to her, asking Liara a string of questions about how she’s feeling. All told, the damage isn’t too bad. Liara’s implant was worth the money her mother paid for it, and the fried amp hasn’t damaged it. Other than the headache and some light burns on the back of her neck, Liara feels no pain. Her arms still have a tendency of falling asleep or erupting into pins and needles. Chakwas tells her that it’s normal, though.

“As long as you don’t use your biotics for a week, you should heal up just fine, my dear,” Dr. Chakwas says, kindly.

“What about Shepard?” Liara asks.

Dr. Chakwas gives her a look that is equal parts amused and frustrated. “She refused to stay in the medbay, so she’s resting in her quarters. If she isn’t, then I told Pressley to throw her into the brig, but that man doesn’t have any spine when it comes to the Commander.”

“I’ll go check on her,” Liara says quickly. She stands up from her cot, legs only slightly shaky, and is out of the medbay before Dr. Chakwas can stop her.

She crosses the deck and knocks on Shepard’s door before she loses the nerve.

“Come in,” Shepard says, and the door slides open and Liara steps in. Shepard is reclined on her bed, propped up by pillows. Despite being the nicest quarters on the ship, the room is not actually that much bigger than Liara’s.

She hesitates. Whatever momentum that carried her here is well and truly lost. “I - I wanted to make sure you were all right,” she says.

“Me? What about you? Here, sit,” Shepard tells her, moving her legs. Liara sits down gratefully at the foot of Shepard’s bed.

“I’m surprised Dr. Chakwas let you out,” Shepard says.

“I didn’t really give her a chance to say no,” Liara admits. “I had to make sure that you were okay.”

She immediately blushes, surprised at her own boldness. But Shepard smiles.

“I’m fine. My armor kept it from going in too deep and the medigel didn’t let me lose too much blood. It would have been a lot worse without your barrier.” Shepard takes her hands in her own, and Liara marvels at the way their skin looks together, warm tones against cold.

Shepard is already leaning forward to meet her when Liara comes closer to kiss her. Shepard immediately deepens the kiss, a hand coming up to cup the back of Liara’s head, avoiding the tender, burnt skin surrounding her implant.

Liara gasps into Shepard’s mouth, adjusting her position so that she’s leaning over Shepard, careful not to jostle her. It’s difficult to control herself. She wants to sink into Shepard, pull her close until they are lined up pulse to pulse, until they are joined at the seams.

She’s so worried about hurting Shepard that she doesn’t realize that she’s opening her mind until she feels the brush of Shepard’s consciousness against her own. Wonder, and worry, and a climbing, roaring elation.

Shepard’s mind opens to her just like it did on the first day they met, when Liara was too busy reeling from having all of her theories about the Protheans confirmed to do more than glimpse into Shepard’s consciousness. It’s too easy, too endless, and far too tempting. She drifts in deeper, until she feels everything that Shepard feels, their kiss mirrored in a kaleidoscope of sensation.

Liara has never met minds with another human before, but she imagines that none feel like this, brimming and bottomless.

She has to pull back at that, breaking off the kiss. Beneath her, Shepard is breathless, her eyes wide.

“That was -” Shepard clears her throat, her voice gone rough. “That was very different from the first time you did that.”

“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t have much experience. Among the asari, it’s embarrassing to have so little control,” she says, drawing back.

Shepard pulls her closer. “Don’t apologize. I liked it - _more_ than liked it.”

“Did you really?” She feels pleased at herself for this.

Shepard smiles. “Yes, I did, all right? Now come back here.” And she tugs on Liara’s sleeve until Liara, with a laugh, has no choice but to kiss her again.

-

Liara is careful not to meet their minds again after that. It’s dangerous, falling into each other too recklessly. And it exhausts her to open her mind to Shepard who, despite all that she is, is still human, her mind not used to the fluidity required for mind melding.

Ilos comes as a surprise.

They have spent so long chasing after Saren, always one step behind, that it is a shock to finally have an ending, of sorts, in their sights. They either stop Saren here, or their efforts up until now will mean nothing.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” Shepard says, weary and worn. There is a weight that has settled on her shoulders ever since they grounded the Normandy.

They are in Shepard’s quarters, Liara kissing her way up Shepard’s neck, to the curve of her ear, breathing in the smell of her hair. She likes the way it feels against her nose, and she nuzzles into it.

“I don’t either,” Liara says, and with a sigh, Shepard turns her head until she’s catching Liara’s lips in a kiss. She holds Liara at her waist and presses her into the bed. They lay entwined, Liara curling her fingers in Shepard’s hair, twisting it around her fingers.

“Would you do it again?” Shepard says. “Meld our minds.”

Liara’s mind stutters a little at what Shepard is asking. “ _Yes_ \- I mean - if you want,” Liara answers, and then bites her lip, considering. “First though,” she trails off, hooking her fingers in the hem of Shepard’s shirt.

Shepard sits up, eyes dark with something that makes Liara want to shiver. She pulls her shirt up over her head and tosses it aside, and then takes off her bra too, until her breasts are bare, Alliance dog tags hanging between them.

Liara strips out of her clothes as well, less gracefully, distracted by Shepard’s mouth on her neck, at the slightest press of teeth. She arches her back off of the bed, moaning too loudly, and Shepard uses the opportunity to take off the rest of Liara’s clothes.

This time, when Shepard leans down to kiss her again, there are no layers between them, the space between their skin done away with, and Liara reaches out and joins their minds together as well.

Then, they are spinning, lost in each other.

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr](http://www.shadowsbroker.tumblr.com).


End file.
